Key Points
- Wilton’s Economic Development Commission tapped a Wilton High School marketing class to refresh the Town’s outdated promotional piece, “40 Things We Love About Wilton”.
- The collaboration exceeded the EDC’s expectations, yielding additional valuable content the EDC will use in social media and other marketing efforts.
- Teacher Maria Breece and EDC members agree the project showcases students’ talents, professionalism, creativity, and love for their community.
Why It Matters: The project is a model of how a school–town partnership can give Wilton students authentic, resume-building experiences while benefiting the Town and its efforts to attract new residents and visitors.
For the past few months, a Wilton High School marketing class has been hard at work with a “real world” assignment from Wilton’s Economic Development Commission (EDC): update the Town’s digital brochure, “40 Things We Love About Wilton”, a marketing tool which highlights Wilton’s best features and amenities.
The project is a unique collaboration between the EDC and the school district — one that has resulted in a win/win benefiting both the Town and students.
“Our students are getting real world experience in a classroom, and that is amazing, because that’s not happening everywhere,” WHS teacher Maria Breece said. “I love that.”
Commissioner Tom Shimko, the EDC’s point person on the project, was effusive in his praise for the students, who presented their work to the EDC last week.
“The [EDC] was genuinely impressed by the quality of the ideas, designs, research, and thought that all of them brought to this project,” Shimko said.
“What these students have done for us is not just create a new version, but a lot of work [and] new creative that we can now use in a lot of different ways,” such as in social media marketing, he said. “Every student that contributed should feel proud of what they created.”
Background
Last fall, as part of an ambitious set of initiatives to advance the EDC’s mission to support the Town’s economic development goals — and after some prompting by First Selectman Toni Boucher — commissioners recognized the need to update the ’40 Things’ brochure.
Building on the EDC’s past success of partnering with a WHS video production class for the Business Spotlight program, the EDC once again turned to WHS teacher Maria Breece to enlist student help to update the ’40 Things’ digital guide.
Breece is the career and technical education instructional leader at WHS as well as the digital media leader for the district. This year, Breece added a marketing class to her teaching schedule, in part because of the EDC project she knew was on the horizon.
The project kicked off on Mar. 27, when commissioners met with Breece’s class to lay out the scope, objectives and requirements for the project, as well as the intended target audience: newcomers, visitors and prospective residents of Wilton.
While the EDC gave students some direction — such as the broad categories that should be included, and a rule that specific businesses could not be named — for the most part students had the freedom to approach the assignment as creatively as they wished. The class was divided into six teams that would each produce an updated brochure and compete for their version to be chosen by the EDC for the Town to use.
Impressive Results
The teams presented their work to the EDC during class on Tuesday, May 12, demonstrating a wide variety of perspectives and skills, including still photography, drone photography, website building and more.
Shimko praised the students for their “professionalism, creativity and teamwork” and said, “Your work will help showcase Wilton in a positive and engaging way.”
The next day, the EDC scheduled a special meeting to review each presentation and deliberate on a winning entry — which Shimko said was “a difficult decision” the EDC only reached after nearly two hours of discussion. Shimko and EDC Commissioner Mike Hanauer then returned to the class the following day to give the students the EDC’s feedback. (Note: All of the projects can be viewed on the EDC meeting video recording, though the actual “pitches” students made during class are not publicly available.)
Shimko announced the winning team was Taylor Halfacre and Haldan Dickinson, whose project was praised for its overall design and its comprehensive yet succinct communication.
Rather than a random, itemized list of 40 things, the winning entry took a more organized, thematic approach — with an emphasis on the opportunity for community connections in Wilton. As Halfacre and Dickinson wrote in their introduction:
“Whether you are a lifelong resident or a first-time visitor, just beginning to discover Wilton‘s charm, we hope this brochure serves as your gateway to the hidden gems of Wilton. From activities like our hiking trails and the fulfilling impact of local volunteer work to the creativity found in our seasonal musicals and concerts, there are endless opportunities to connect.”
“This was a very difficult decision,” Shimko emphasized. “There were strong ideas in every presentation, and every team contributed something valuable. Many of their ideas [are] simply too good for the EDC not to use in some way.”
The winning entry will now go through a round of revisions, to incorporate some compelling aspects from other entries and a few minor changes the EDC would like to see. A final product is expected to be shared later this summer.
From The Students’ Point of View
Currently in their senior year, both Halfacre and Dickinson said they would take valuable lessons from the EDC assignment with them into the future.
“I had an incredible time working on this. I am majoring in marketing in college, so this was a great project for me,” said Halfacre, who will attend Fordham University. “It was an amazing experience working on a longterm, real-world marketing product.”
Halfacre said her own experience as a newcomer to Wilton helped her identify with the intended target audience.
“I had a unique perspective on this project,” she said. “Our goal with this was to attract families to Wilton who are looking to relocate. I moved here two years ago from California, so it was very personal.”
Dickinson, who will attend Boston University, was also grateful for the experience and how it will help shape his professional endeavors, which includes HDD Media, a photography and videography business he founded 18 months ago.
“I’m really grateful that Mrs. Breece got us involved with this project,” he said. “I’m really glad that I had this experience because as I grow as a paid photographer, I am sure that I will be in similar situations.”
Dickinson summed up the win-win experience this way:
“It’s great to know that we are helping our hometown while learning and doing the things we are passionate about.”
The Teacher’s Take: Real World in the Classroom
Breece said she couldn’t be more proud of all students in the class — especially knowing that some were nervous about giving their presentations.
“We talked about public speaking, we talked about body language, we talked about not reading [from notes] — and they did exactly what we had practiced,” she said. “That was just the most impressive thing I had seen. And some of them are only freshmen, so I can only imagine what is to come.”
“Watching them present, I couldn’t have been more impressed,” she said.
Breece relayed the feedback she received from her students reflected a deeper sense of appreciation for all Wilton has to offer.
“[The students said], ‘We never realized how amazing our community is or we grew up in such a great area’,” Breece said. “They learned so much about themselves, realizing that their town offers so much more than they actually thought. They’ll never say ‘we have nothing to do in Wilton’ again.”
But for Breece, the true value of the project comes from the “real world” and not just an academic exercise.
“What I loved most about it, is that it was authentic,” she said. “For me, teaching is about providing students with authentic experience. They’re here in high school, but they just got a real experience.”